Japan approves $1.5b deal for new Tokyo Olympic stadium

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FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2016, file photo, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, left, speaks about his design of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics stadium, background, during a press conference in Tokyo. Japan’s government approved on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, a plan for a nearly 150 billion yen ($1.5 billion) contract with a joint venture to build a new main stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The stadium construction will begin in December, more than a year after an earlier plan was scrapped due to spiraling cost and an unpopular design. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government approved a 150 billion yen ($1.5 billion) contract Friday to build a new main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, a project that has been delayed by more than a year.

Officials said the stadium construction would begin in December after an earlier plan was scrapped because of spiraling costs and an unpopular design.

The Japan Sport Council, a government-funded organization operating the project, said the stadium was scheduled for completion at the end of November 2019, still five months behind schedule. The delay forced a venue change for the Rugby World Cup that Japan is also hosting in 2019.

The cost of an earlier design by the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid had risen to 265 billion yen ($2.65 billion), more than twice the initial forecast.

The 150 billion ($1.5 billion) contract is just below the 155 billion ($1.55 billion) ceiling set this time for the contractors, a joint venture among Taisei Corp., Azusa Sekkei Co. and the office of Kengo Kuma, an architect who designed the new stadium.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said she would closely monitor the expensive project that the city is also part-funding.

"For the burden we have to share, I will ensure it's utilized for the people of Tokyo, and raise my voice when necessary," she said.

A sports ministry panel is discussing how best the stadium can be used after the Tokyo Games.

The stadium delay is part of Japan's troubled preparations for the Olympics, underscoring a widespread lack of cost-control. The Japanese organizers have also faced a bribery scandal. They are now also bracing for a possible delay in the construction of roads linking the main Olympic venues near a new fish market project, which has been hit by a construction scandal and tainted underground water.

The Tokyo metropolitan government is currently reviewing the ballooning cost because of concern about its financial burden and the impact on Tokyo taxpayers.

The city-appointed panel of outside experts warned in a report Thursday that the total cost could exceed 3 trillion yen ($30 billion) without a drastic cost-cutting effort, and suggested using existing facilities instead of building new ones that could likely end up as white elephants.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Relatives of Jesse Owens and America's 17 other black athletes from the 1936 Olympics were welcomed to the White House on Thursday by President Barack Obama for the acknowledgement they didn't receive along with their white counterparts 80 years ago.

Along with the relatives of the 1936 African-American Olympians, gloved-fist protesters Tommie Smith and John Carlos and members of the 2016 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams met the president and first lady Michelle Obama. Obama congratulated the Rio athletes, thanked Smith and Carlos for waking up Americans in 1968 and praised 1936 Olympians who made a statement in front of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany.

TOKYO (AP) — An expert panel set up by Tokyo's newly elected governor says the price tag of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics could exceed $30 billion unless drastic cost-cutting measures are taken. That's more than a four-fold increase from the initial estimate at the time Tokyo was awarded the games in 2013.